Any excuse for a Beetles track first thing in the morning!
I want to write a post on bike porn and I keep putting it off because I feel I will end up becoming quite scathing on bike snobs and my love of vintage heavy frames will checker my writing. Not that my writing needs any excuse to be worse than normal but I think a more reasoned viewpoint might be needed.
Instead I am writing today about a trend of improvements I have noticed on my daily commute. Yes it is still fledgling and early days but there is a clear trend of speeding up (or misusing Strava!).
OK before we begin lets put a bit of context to this. I am a teacher and as such the amount of books, work, laptop, and food changes day to day depending on what I am doing post school day or how much I had done the night before. For instance this week I have done very little after school apart from plan my lessons because marking has not fully kicked in yet - plus I am pottering at home a lot (more on that later).
All of the above means the mass of my bike is changing day to day however there are days where it is heavier than others, although as my pace is increasing with each journey I don't think the weight of the bike is a factor (at this moment) for my speed to work. Now I am only looking at going to school as after school there are days where I have had a meeting or have had a busy day and am more tired than others (naturally affecting my performance!). The more scientifically accurate data to look at is the morning commute when I am refreshed and ready to smash out the ride in - that is similar base line.
Another more anecdotal factor to consider is that I am more used to the bike and the route in each day. However again there are mitigating factors to this - weather conditions each day affect how much I feel I can 'push' the bike, so far it has been bright and dry - no atmospheric issues to report! There is also an issue with traffic as I haven't encountered to much road traffic on my route. When I say too much I mean there is traffic, naturally, but there is not much that is slowing my progress to work too much. However the moments on the way home when a giant lorry is behind you itching to overtake and your a pedaling as hard as possible up a hill, well that isn't as fun as it could be. One thing I know that is making a difference is knowing the route better. Being able to judge when to sprint to get up a hill, knowing when I might need to coast to conserve a bit of energy or when a tight bend is approaching makes a huge difference to overall pace. However this familiarity is breeding full blown contempt with some of the roads - especially around the industrial estate I have to go through - which are horrific in places (broken tarmac, potholes etc).
Yet every time I finish and Strava presents me with my uploaded ride it is nice to see the little trophy appear with a series of PB's. Especially in the last few days where I have been riding single speed - just not changing gears. I especially like seeing the average speed increasing. From 22.7km/h to 23.7km/h to 25 km/h (first day single speed) to this mornings 26.2km/h effort.
Speaking about single speeds (this is the pottering bit), as it seems to be the appropriate moment. I have sold the Emmelle and am currently rebuilding a '72 Raleigh road bike (steel frame, decent nick, resprayed in bright yellow). The Raleigh I have decided will be a lightweight single speed bike, something I have read up on and seems to be a good choice as a winter training bike (though I am not going whole hog and making a fixie). Also my commute doesn't really need gears - only a couple of 'rises' nothing major, so the removal of the most problematic mechanical component makes sense.
I shall of course continue to monitor my progress on Strava using their rather impressive training log and with any luck I can continue to get quicker and more importantly feel stronger/fitter in time for a proper assault on next years sportive season. With any luck the progress will continue to improve but obviously the law of diminishing returns will soon start to kick in.
Or something like that...
No comments:
Post a Comment